31 December 2016

Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, their deaths capped off a terrible year.

"Sometimes everything seems just like a dream. It's not my dream, it's somebody else's. But I have to participate in it. How do you think someone who dreams about us would feel when he wakes up. Feeling ashamed?" - From Ingmar Bergman's Shame (1968).
"Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love! "

The above was tweeted earlier today by the US president elect. I think it sums the “man” up rather well. He is utterly lacking in any class or grace. Never mind the fact that he brings to the highest office in the land not a shred of understanding for his position nor any empathy for the people he was “elected” to serve. His presidency — however long it may last — could prove to be the undoing of the United States. Democracy as we know it is in grave danger. Corporations will be unregulated to such an extent that they will attain unimaginable profits while the poor plunge even further into poverty. Capitalism was an interesting idea but it is clearly an out of control monster that devours everything in its path and must be under the strictest of controls.

He is liar. A cad. A cheat. A hypocrite. A narcissist. He lacks ethics, morals or values. He is an inspiration to racists everywhere. Not to mention sexists, idiots and the lowest form of life and conservative evangelicals who have perfected the art of hypocrisy to an extent that even the president elect can only aspire to.

So will begin 2017. A year that — difficult as it may be to imagine — might be worse that 2016.

So there’s that. There’s also something else troubling: the social fascism of millennials. Recently Steve Martin tweeted about the death of Carrie Fisher “When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She turned out to be witty and bright as well.” He was lambasted for being sexist because he had the gall to point out her beauty and list it ahead of her other attributes. Martin deleted the tweet. Outrage is easy. Manufacturing outrage is easy. In today’s world with comments, opinion, sentiments and just plain old sentences flying about social media, finding some silly thing to get riled about is a particularly simple matter.

People with common sense came forward and defended Martin and raged at the raged. As one person commented: “I’m so tired of all this binary thinking and heartless self righteous anger….” Exactly. You can’t use these words. You can say anything about these or those people. These people can’t make jokes about those people. You shouldn’t say that or even think this. Increasingly we are seeing — from the left, mind you — strictures on free speech that will mute social commentary, dialogue, humor, expressions of grief and truth telling. Words and expressions are being taken away. Thin skinned self righteous millennials are particularly guilty of moral indignation and consequent hissy fits anytime someone steps over a line that none of us knew even existed. Somewhere Cotton Mather is smiling.

All is not bleak. It just feels that way. This feeling, of course, stems from horrible national and international events but is worsened by the losses of still more deaths of beloved celebrites, the aforementioned Ms. Fisher and then her mom, Debbie Reynolds are only the latest in a long line who have died these past 12 months. No word on whether anyone born this year is capable of filling the void.

But I look forward to the coming year. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said. (We could sure use his like today.). I hope he’s right. It is worth noting that the world is in many respects a safer, cleaner place than it ever has been. In more and more countries women are gaining more rights and protections as are gays, children, the elderly, the handicapped and other minorities. However, there is — as we have seen in the US — blowback with the rise of racist national groups and xenophobia, but that is inevitable. Hopefully we shall overcome. It has happened. Pessimism gains no one anything, other than an excuse to sit out the struggle. And struggle we need.

There is music, there is art, there is literature, there is film, there are still some uncorrupted sports competitions. There are parks, forests, beaches and other natural wonders. There is instant communication and air travel. There is scientific progress. There are advances in medicine. There is love. There is hope. And I don’t mean Bob.

So what's next? How about this? "Whatever happens, it's time to bury neoliberalism. We need genuine wealth + power redistribution. Only a real left can fight fascism." - Naomi Klein

23 December 2016

It’s cold, rainy and windy. Typically one adds: outside. I don’t see the point. If you are blessed with four walls and a roof and your windows are closed you should be experiencing neither rain nor wind in your domicile. Cold is another matter. This requires a heating system and proper insulation to avoid frigid weather. So as I was saying, it is cold, rainy and windy. My reaction to this is: huzzah! It’s December, it’s nearly Christmas and it is most appropriate that we have what many call “foul” or “bad” weather. I call it beautiful weather because I’m just the slightest bit odd. I guess you could scratch the “slightest bit” part. I find sunny cloudless days to be boring. Oh I don’t mind them now and again, particularly after a good hearty storm.

Despite my leftward political leanings and my indifference to religion and to the notions of god, jesus and virgin births, I love the Christmas season. I’ve made much of this fact in the past. The religious over tones of the holiday don’t bother me so much because I was raised with them and now find it simple enough to ignore them. The commercialization of Christmas is something people have been complaining about since I was a child (yes Christmas started before I was born ) and furthermore those complaints date back at least as far as the early 1900s. I like the break from the usual that Christmas provides. The colors, the trees, the gift giving, the huge meals, the family gatherings, the carols and Jolly Old Saint Nick himself. Plus you’ve got some darn good Christmas-related films (not to mention a plethora of bad ones) and a few good Christmas specials on TV. Most of these are from 50 years ago.

I have many other things on my mind besides Yuletide. I was asked recently what I thought would happen under a Trump presidency. Anyone who tries to predict the next four months, let alone the next four years, is full of it (I’ll leave to your imagination what “it” is). I challenge anyone to correctly predict the next four weeks. We are in unknown territory. The United States has never had a president who in anyway resembles this unbalanced individual. The potential for serious havoc being wreaked is unmeasurable. It does seem likely that Trump will violate the constitution (much as he has violated women) and suffer an impeachment. Indeed its hard to imagine this not happening. How much damage will be done in the meantime is incalculable. The president elect is a prolific liar, notoriously thin skinned, utterly capricious, malicious, narcissistic and totally incapable of understanding the niceties of diplomacy.

Meanwhile the country may well be torn asunder. Virulent racists are crawling out from under rocks, spewing their hatred, sometimes on the internet, sometimes in speechs, sometimes through graffiti and vandalism and sometimes directly at a person of color. Trump’s election has emboldened white nationalists, nazi wannabes, the KKK and all manner of racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islama phobic nut jobs. There will come a point when shots will be fired -- literally -- people will clash in the streets and more bombs will be explode. Because Trump has assembled a cabinet chock full of million and billionaires who have no regard for anyone beneath their station (i.e. the overwhelming number of the people they serve) we can expect massive indifference and devastating funding cuts to little things like education, research, alternative energy, housing and the social safety net. The Affordable Care Act may suffer and there’s but little question that — at this extremely critical time — efforts to combat climate change will be cast aside. It’s dumbfounding and depressing that we will have a president and his cabinet who deny what the rest of the world knows and what over 90% of climate scientists says is a verifiable fact. The inmates will be running the asylum.

Will Trump trample on basic first amendments rights? He may try. Will he ever release his tax returns. On a cold day in hell. Will he ever hold a press conference. Probably one, eventually, and likely he won't like the experience and it will be nigh on impossible to get him to do another.

As I alluded to earlier, I am very far to the left of the political spectrum (something I will address on this blog in the very near future). Trump’s election and his forthcoming presidency are pushing me farther to the left. My reading of late has included a lot about Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, and most especially the radical movements of the Sixties and Seventies including two sets of memoirs by former members of the Weather Underground. Trumpism may well lead to a huge revival of radical leftist politics. It will unquestionably further arouse the progressive populism that Bernie Sanders stirred last year. It is conceivable that, in the long run, much good could come out of Trump’s buffoonery. It may lead to a meltdown of conservative politics and do severe damage to the republican party. Meanwhile the Democrats could move further left. They may, ala Bernie, stop trying to compete with republicans for moderates and state their case from the position of a purer form of liberalism. Republicans successfully shifted far to the right in the Eighties with much success. Since FDR was president, Democrats, at least those who have earned the presidency and others in power, have betrayed their progressive roots in order to seduce conservative Democrats and die-hard moderates. While Obama did as much as he could given congressional interference to carry out strong liberal domestic policies, his foreign policy did not differ significantly from that of his predecessors from either party. Drone strikes killing civilians and damaging US status, were carried out pell mell. The fight against terrorism has gotten nowhere fast.

But enough about depressing topics. My own personal depression has abated significantly recently with nine of the last ten days seeing yours truly perfectly happy. I bring a message of hope to fellow sufferers that there are good days in your future no matter how bad it feels now. I’ve had some dark days that suggested my permanent condition would be one of terrible melancholy. I’m not out of the proverbial woods yet but I’m enjoying what I can one day at a time. Having experience with a 12 step program makes a lot of things in life easier to cope with. I have also been coping with the diagnosis that I am bipolar. I wasn’t surprised to learn that this was the case but I was amazed and hugely disappointed that something so obvious was not previously recognized. Especially since I bear all the characteristics of someone on the bipolar spectrum. Indeed I was ultimately quite relieved by the diagnosis as it gave me a label for some of my “problems” and one that I share with a great many people.

I am happy today and I look forward to enjoying tomorrow when I will be with daughters, wife, nieces, nephews, their spouses and their children and my sister-in-law for a traditional Finnish Christmas Eve celebration. Damn it I like Christmas and don’t care who knows it. Trump on the other hand….

17 December 2016

Bill Allen, 38, of Wicketsborough Connecticut went out to get a loaf of bread one night last year. It was a little after 8:00 on a cold autumn night. Three days later he was in a Turkish prison being raped by Bahar Aslan, a suspected murderer. It seems that Bill Allen, photography store owner and notary public, bore a striking resemblance to a Russian spy, one Yuri Ivanovich.

In the aftermath of his abduction no one back in Wicketsborough, nor anywhere else in the US, had the foggiest notion where Bill Allen was. His wife of 15 years, Debra Allen and his daughter Lisa (9) and son Buster (nee Robert) (6) were, unsurprisingly worried. So too was the family dog, Chester, (4) who could sense unhappiness within the family circle. The Allen’s cat, Rusty seemed to be carrying on as usual.

A month prior, Bill Allen had been in New York city to check out some new photography accessories being previewed at an exhibition. At some point while strolling through Manhattan, Bill was spotted by a Turkish agent who was in New York tailing a Saudi operative. The agent notified his superiors who sent a man to do what used to be called in movies, a tail job. Allen’s resemblance to Yuri Ivanovich was unmistakable, right down to their short blonde hair parted on the left. It also was a fact that Ivanovich, very much wanted by the Turks as well as other nations, had not been seen in two years. Apprehending the Russian spy would be quite a coup as he was the bearer of many secrets that the Turks dearly wanted.

What no one then knew was that Yuri Ivanovich was no longer of this Earth having drowned while fishing in Australia and subsequently being feasted upon by a seawater crocodile. What remained of him could hardly be used to certify identification, especially given the amount of time said remains had been in the water.

That fateful night two Turkish agents had lured Bill Allen toward their van under the pretext of asking for directions. Bill was a notoriously trusting fellow who had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss. He took things at face value. Sadly for this trusting fellow, the agents very neatly and quickly rendered Mr. Allen unconscious and tied him up in the back of the van. By the time the man who resembled a Russian spy regained consciousness, he was somewhere over the Atlantic. Needless to say Allen had no clue what was happening to him and was quite frightened. Actually more like terrified.

None of the Turks spoke to their captive, not even to answer any of his questions. Their silence continued after the airplane arrived and he was driven to the prison. As a tactic of many agencies when having captured a foreign spy; Allen was left to wonder at his fate even as he was thrown into a prison cell alongside the aforementioned Mr. Aslan.

One might wonder if the Turks were at all suspicious of the fact that their captive was not speaking a word of Russian and that his English was fluent and without an accent. However the late Mr. Ivanovich was known to be fluent in several languages betraying nary an accent in any of them.

It was five days before Bill Allen was brought out for interrogation. By this time he had cried, screamed, wailed and nearly gone insane contemplating the horrific and unknowable events that had visited him. He was ordered to sit in a chair at a table facing two Turkish men in suits. The room was absolutely sterile ,windowless, clean and stark. A bright overheard light shone on the middle of the table. A uniformed guard stood by the door.

Mr. Allen was addressed as Yuri Ivanovich by one of the men across from him and spoken to in Russian. The confused and terrified Mr. Allen cried that he didn’t understand them and demanded to know what was happening. He then sobbed. One of the two men then spoke English to the prisoner saying that they would “play this portion of the game” his way. He then asked Mr. Allen, “what have you to tell us?”

Bill Allen, owner of a photography store and notary public, wailed that he didn’t even know where he was or why he was here. “Very good Yuri Ivanovich, we’ll just have to allow you more time in your cell to decide that you will talk to us and tell us everything we ask.”

The men started to get up. Bill Allen, in a loud, desperate, pleading voice cried, “wait! what did you call me? You’ve got the wrong guy. I'm not even Russian!”

“Surely,” one of the men said, “you can do better than that. Why don’t you quit this charade and save us all precious time by talking to us.”

“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” insisted Mr. Allen.

The two men retook their seats. “Let us start by you telling us who was responsible for the killing of our man in Athens and why he was killed.”

Bill Allen was dumbstruck. He did not possess a great intellect. Yes he’d managed good enough grades in school, but he merely learned what was required and possessed no intellectual curiosity. He was a simple man of simple tastes who, besides spending time with his family, enjoyed nothing so much as watching TV with his wife. But it was now clear to him that he was mistaken for a spy, probably a Russian one, as he correctly believed that that was the language they’d spoken to him in.

“Do you think I’m a Russian spy? Is that what you think? You’ve made a mistake, a terrible mistake. My name is William Allen, I own a photo shop in Wicketsborough. That’s my hometown, you see. You can ask anyone there about me. I have a wife and children and they must be desperately worried. Oh please, take me to the American embassy and we can straighten this whole thing out. I’ve just got —- ”

“That’s enough, Mr. Ivanovich,” said one of the men as he raised a hand. It seems you’ve chosen not to cooperate. I must say you are a splendid actor. I could well imagine you fooling many people.” Then the man nodded at the guard.

“But I’m not acting. I really am who I say. I can’t even speak Russian.” But the guard pulled Bill Allen out of his chair and led the sobbing man back to his cell and into the loving arms of his cellmate.

Three days later Bill Allen was brought into the same room and seated in the same chair across from the same people with the same guard at the door. Questions were asked and innocence was pleaded. Allen grew nearly hysterical and the two men calmly watched. Then one stood and slapped the prisoner across the face. Then hit him in the chest. Then spat in his face. Then slapped him again and yet again Then punched him in the stomach.

“You see, Yuri Ivanovich, we can talk calmly or we can be rough. In fact, if we talk calmly you will soon have your own room and be served very nice meals. So what do you say? Will you cooperate?

Bill Allen’s face was crimson and there were flecks of blood on it and his shoulders. His chest ached and it had taken awhile to breath normally after the punch to the gut. He had never been struck before and had never even played a contact sport. The poor man was sobbing uncontrollably, large strings of snot were streaming out of his nose. It was then that two men began to consult with one another, speaking quietly in Turkish. They expressed doubts that this was really Yuri Ivanovich. For one thing, said the man who had struck him, he is so soft, hardly like a Russian agent. Yes, said the other, and this sobbing like a woman does not seem to be acting, it’s too good. Plus, they both agreed, no Russian agent, particularly not one as notoriously tough as Yuri Ivanovich would sob at all, let alone so passionately.

Mr. Bill Allen was placed in a room with a small, but comfortable bed with clean sheets. There was even a window that looked out onto a field. The photograph store owner had not seen the outdoors since going out for the loaf of bread. He was also given clean clothes and allowed a shower.

There he stayed for three more days, receiving decent meals and fresh water to drink. Bill Allen was far from happy but in his misery he was suffering less. He was left to wonder why the change, as welcome as it was, and what to expect next.

Meanwhile the Turkish agents conducted a rigorous investigation (or more precisely had fellow agents in the US do it) into the background of William Allen of Wicketsborough, Connecticut. It took three days to receive a report saying that the man was just who he claimed to be. As for Yuri Ivanovich, there was no trace of him and more importably for Bill Allen, no record of him ever being in Connecticut. Indeed there were reports that he’d last been seen in Australia.

Now it had to be decided what was to be done with Bill Allen. Turning him over to the American embassy was out of the question, it would be far too embarrassing and injurious to US-Turkish relations. There was talk of merely shooting him and burying his remains where they’d never be found but that was dismissed on humanitarian grounds. Finally it was decided to put Mr. Allen right back to where they had taken him. Just leave him on the street where he had been abducted. He could thus re-unite with his family and surely no one, at least not in an official capacity, would believe his story — if he could himself to tell it.

So it was that Mr. Bill Allen was heavily sedated and flown back to the United States. By the time he was in the van — the same one he’d rode to out of Wicketsbourough in, Allen was awake, if groggy. He was alone in the back left to his thoughts having no clue where he was going.

Allen was dropped off on the same street where he’d been picked up at virtually the same spot at the same time of night. Even his loaf of bread was replaced. He wore the same clothes he’d had on that night, nearly two weeks ago. The driver of the van and his companion drove off as soon as they had deposited Bill Allen.

Bewildered, dazed, confused and terribly anxious, the poor man walked on wobbly legs the two and half blocks to his home. When he walked through the front door his wife Debra screamed — half in delight and half in shock. Lisa and Buster, who had been staring numbly at the TV set, leapt to their feet, crying “daddy, daddy, daddy” over and over again. Chester barked and jumped wagging his tail furiously. Rusty looked up from his perch atop the sofa, licked a paw, then resumed his slumber.

Amidst all the weeping and hugging and kissing, Mrs. Allen finally asked her husband what had happened and where had he been. Bill Allen veritably staggered to his easy chair and plopped down. He looked up lovingly at his wife, smiled at his kids and said, “you’d never believe me, not in a million years.” On the walk home Mr. Allen had wondered what he could possibly say to anyone about his disappearance. The real story would seem bizarre and beyond belief. His own recourse was a lie. One he was still trying to concoct as he sat down.

“For heaven’s sake, Bill, tell me!” his wife demanded.

Mr. Allen paused a moment then said, “I don’t know, I guess I fell or something and got amnesia because I can’t remember a thing. The last thing I remember is paying for the bread. The next thing I knew I was staggering down the street with a blinding headache, knowing that some time had passed since I left for the store."

"I wonder where you could have been? People were looking all over for you. Your disappearance was on the local TV news and in the papers. Anyway we're just so glad you're home.

"I'm confounded by all of this too. So tell me, how long have I been away?”

11 December 2016

“I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it.” - Rodney Dangerfield

Hey guess what I got to struggle with last night? My worst ever case of insomnia. Woke up at 12 something, 1 something, 2 something, 3 something and when I work up at 4 something there was no getting back to dreamland. I had both tossed and turned to no avail and so finally got up and spent an hour on the computer. I tried at last to sleep on the sofa and did so quite fitfully for 90 minutes before giving up on that too. So guess how I feel now? If you said like warmed over ostrich vomit you are correct.

The day after a bad night of sleep recalls the many hangovers I used to suffer. In fact one day a few months ago I woke up after not sleeping well adding to this I was severely depressed, had an upset stomach and a headache. If my wallet had been empty and I’d only recalled parts of the previous night it would have been exactly like a hangover.

When I was drinking, hangovers were just part of the deal like being sore after a good workout. Sometimes there’d be a point in the evening at which I realized that if I continued imbibing I’d be in for that morning after feeling. Usually I said, “aw screw it” and carried on nonplussed.

The typical hangover consisted of a blinding headache, achy bones, weakness, queasiness, guilt, anxiety, regret and a dash or two of depression. Hangovers varied according to what you drank. I found beer hangovers to be the most tolerable unless the evening’s grog had consisted of heavy malts. Those could produce some dozzies. Wine hangovers were the ones most likely to cause nausea. Hard alcohol made for the worst headaches. Mixing drinks could also be lethal. The worst though was the Irish Coffee hangover. Whiskey, sugar and coffee are a brutal combination plus the concoction kept you up longer thus allowing you to drink more. Irish coffee hangovers made suicide seem an inviting option.

Hangovers could be blunted in two ways: drink plenty of water before going to bed, take two Tylenol. The problem is that you’re often too sloshed to think of it. As for hangover cures I found the best thing to do was to sleep as late as possible. After rising a shower would be in order and then, if at all possible, a hearty breakfast. But no matter these, the only real cure was a hair of the dog. A beer or two would take the edge off and if you could stop at a buzz you were usually good for the day. The risk, of course, was going beyond a few and starting in another evening of bacchanalia.

Another addition to hangover woes was cocaine, the more you’d partaken the worse the morning after. The cocaine itself could cause a nasty hangover and the copious amounts of liquor that the coke kept you awake to partake in furthered the damage. You may wake up next to a stranger. I did twice. In one instance I had no idea what her name was and we clearly been "intimate" the night before. Upon waking up she left and I never so her again nor did I discover her name. I remain particularly ashamed of that night/morning. I also woke up a few times to find vomit not far away. In one cases it had splashed upon a new book I'd just purchased that featured stills from all of Humphrey Bogart's films.

Drunks are perfectly happy to discuss and compare hangovers. The imagination runs wild in describing the hangover. One regular description was that a hole had been bored into the brain and sand had been poured in. There was also the claim that jackhammers were busy at work inside one’s head. Of course some swore off alcohol for a few days, a week or even longer when in the throes of a nasty one. You could tell a drunkard by the fact that the drinking would recommence well short of the goal. Often that very day. A real sot wouldn’t bother with promises and just get on with the drinking.

The real problem with hangovers was the guilt, shame and regret at what you did remember and the horror associated with large chunks of the evening that you had no memory of. God knows what you had done. Sometimes you can strain your brain and recall an image or person or a snippet of conversation. The worst was when the whole evening was a blank. You may well have insulted someone, flirted with the wrong woman, made a fool of yourself in front of the right woman or just made an ass of yourself in front of everyone. Sometimes you’d see a fellow reveler the next day and hear something to the effect of, “boy were you a mess last night” Or, “do you even remember last night?” Sometimes it wasn't so bad as in, “you were hilarious last night.” I once had a woman tell me what a good dancer I’d been and how funny I was. I neither recalled dancing nor making jests.

One day I woke up with no memory at all of the previous night. Total blank. Later that day I went to meet the people I’d been with that night at our favorite watering hole. They weren’t there. I asked around and someone told me that they’d gone to another bar. Funny, nobody told me. When I entered they turned their backs to me and pretended I wasn’t there. A collective cold shoulder. Freezing cold. I had a love/hate relationship with the most prominent member of our group and I’m sure that while in my cups I’d brought up every grievance I’d ever had with her. I slunk off, chastened, never to see “the gang” again. No matter, I moved out of the town shortly thereafter. Some years later I heard that the aforementioned woman had died of cancer while still in her early forties. I regret to this day that I didn’t make amends with her.

When you have a serious pain somewhere your body is telling you that something is wrong. Similarly if you are ill there is cause that sometimes requires investigation. With that in mind a hangover is certainly an internal memo to your brain and body that what took place the previous evening did damage and is to be avoided in the future. A heavy drinker is not interested in that missive.

One of the great joys of sobriety is the complete and total absence of hangovers. Other ailments come along but they do not visit us out of our stupidity and there is no shame, no empty wallet and no gaps in the memory.

If you partake every now and again but rarely get tipsy and do not suffer hangovers, I congratulate you. Mind you I don’t understand this ability at all. Even today when I see or hear of someone having “a couple of drinks” and truly no more, I’m dumbfounded. How is it possible? Sure there were a few occasions when I stopped after one or two but they were the exception.

Now the exception is when I wake up not feeling well. Life can get better — provided you get enough sleep.

04 December 2016

I wanted to write about how annoyed I get with bicyclists and people who talk on cell phones in public and how ridiculous cigarette smokers are but I decided to go into a more positive direction which means I’ll also not be talking about commuting as it’s nigh on impossible to have anything positive to say about commuting other than, “today's commute was relatively free of agonizing delays and horrible incidents.” So the gist of all this is that I have to be positive. Oh my lord that can make for some boring writing. Plus how positive can you be in the age of Trump?

Challenges. We claim to like them. I remember as a middle school teacher we were supposed to stop referring to students who were a pain in the arse as “bad kids” or “trouble makers” or even “difficult.” They were to be known as “challenging students.” Oh good a “challenge.” It will be a real “challenge” to teach this kid, hell it might be a real "challenge" to get the little bastard to stay in his seat.

But again I fear that is being negative and my purpose here is to spread sunshine, rainbows, fairy dust and moonbeams and do so in the age of Trump. Speaking of that buffoon. Could his election mark the decline of the US? Sure, some would argue that said decline started awhile back. Maybe with Watergate, or Vietnam or either of the Red Scares. But the country has remained propped up and holding its own although still dispensers of terror from the sky often in the form of drone strikes which have the nasty habit of incinerating innocent people. But at least the US stood for something. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure what it stood for, maybe, to quote the great Groucho Marx, “it stood for plenty.”)

Now we’ve got a megalomaniac bigot with conflicts of interests positively bursting from the seams whose appointing every regressive person he can find to dismantle as many progressive changes as we’ve been able to manage recently. The first Twitter Troll in Chief. The most thin skinned of all presidents, and the least prepared and maybe the one least interested in the job. My goodness a president who can make George W look bad. Seems impossible.

So if you say someone did the impossible you are guilty of grammatical fiction. You may, however, say that someone has done something that was previously thought to be impossible. Our we clear on this?
So that wasn’t all so positive so maybe I should change the topic. Maybe. Then again maybe I’m just not in the mood. Funny thing is that as I write this I’m enjoying about my sixth day in a row with little or no depression*. Longest streak since April. Maybe I’m cured. Yeah I doubt it too. But its good not to be slumped in a chair looking deep into nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing feeling only existential pain and wondering if there was ever really such a thing as happiness. Along came some new meds. So now I skip merrily down the street tossing daises in the air and singing a happy song. Oh joy.

Actually I do want to make a point about bike riders: stay off sidewalks, obey the traffic laws, and don’t intentionally ride slowly in front of cars. And another thing, keep your fucking bikes off public transportation. They take up space, bump people on the train on the platform and on the escalator.

Sorry that was another example of a lack of positivity on my part. I’ll try harder. Here we go: I saw a cute squirrel the other day. Reminded me that I grew up with a walnut tree in my backyard which was regularly visited by squirrels. Most of them were skittish and did not like to fraternize with homo sapiens. I remember a few who would approach you if you had a nut in your hand and one particularly bold furry friend who actually took a nut from my hand. I also recall a rabid squirrel. What an awful racket it made and how fearsome it seemed. Amazing that a little furry tailed creature can be so frightening -- but it was -- particularly knowing that its bite would pass along rabies. As a child I was given to believe that the cure for rabies came from a very long thick needle that caused almost as much pain as would rabies.

Movies. I’ve seen two fantastic films this year, the best I’ve seen in theaters since Birdman. The two are (drum roll) Moonlight and Manchester By the Sea. Both have received nearly unanimous critical acclaim and have won some of the early bird film awards for 2016. So in saying they are great movies I’m not exactly breaking new ground. Still this is encouraging, especially in light of the fact that I’ve seen some other very good films. I keep thinking that the movie industry is dying but they keep cranking out the odd excellent film every now and again. It doesn't always seem so because of the flood of stupid comedies and ridiculous action films and zombie films that permeate cineplexes throughout the year.

What’s so good about Moonlight and Manchester is that they don’t pander. They are not targeted to a particular demographic, they aren’t reboots of older films, on another in a series of a franchise or a cinematic version of a comic book. They do not have dazzling special effects, a big Hollywood mega star, a booming soundtrack. They are not rife with cliches or at all predictable. They are honest original films that tell human stories. That’s really all you want out of a film along with good cinematography, proper direction, editing and locations that compliment the story. (Well this part was kind of positive.)

The Holiday of Christmas Season is open us. That means many of you will go to your battle stations to help fight for or against the War on Christmas. The forces trying to “protect” Christmas are in a much superior position. They have great economic strength, millions of adherents to the holiday and traditions galore. One might even argue that there really is no war to speak of. People saying Happy Holidays in place of Merry Christmas may at times be silly and at other times appropriate, but in any case its nothing that’s going to tackle the behemoth that is Christmas. Nor will the removal of a nativity scene or the failure to put a Christmas tree in a public space nor anyone responding to Christmas with an emphatic “bah humbug!” Yes the very notion of a War on Christmas, perpetrated by right wing loonies is laughable. Deck the halls, everyone.

Notice in the above paragraph I did not write: The so-called War on Christmas. I had so-called. It is called that. Why do we need to put a so-called in front of terms? Often it is to demean the term. Why not refer to everything as so-called? The so-called Rocky Mountains, the so-called Jennifer Lawrence, the so-called open heart surgery.

So how’ve I done? Being positive is not so easy. Not when you are in a constant struggle with depression and not when Trump and his gang of conservative zealots is about to pillage the US. But one must try. Optimism never hurt anyone and indeed has helped many. Provided of course that one makes any efforts at their disposable to see that their optimism is not misplaced. Cynicism is an easy trap to fall into and does no good. It’s baby brother pessimism is hardly any better. As Oscar Wilde once said, “a cynic sees the price of everything and the value of nothing.” If we don’t have hope we are lost.

Keep a good thought, everybody.

* I wrote this bit last week. Since then my streak went to seven days then abruptly stopped and now I'm on day four of having the blues. So it goes.

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And I quote:

"Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading". - Ernest Hemingway

"They have a mind to till the soil and the love of possession is a disease with them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break but the poor may not. They take their tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule." - Sitting Bull

"Here's what we can do to change the world, right now.... Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." - Bill Hicks

“Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable. Time and place do not exist; on a significant bases of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns; a mixture of memories, experiences, free fancies, incongruities and improvisations.” - August Strindberg

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism. -- Fred Hampton

Kerouac quotes

I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? -On the Road

Everything belongs to me because I’m poor. - Visions of Cody

“Finding Nirvana is like locating silence.” - Dharma Bums

“I'm right there, swimming the river of hardships but I know how to swim...” - Desolation Angels